Daily Bible Reading 23rd March 2026 // Luke 2:1-7
1 In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration when Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 And all went to be registered, each to his own town. 4 And Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the town of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, 5 to be registered with Mary, his betrothed, who was with child. 6 And while they were there, the time came for her to give birth. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
Here is a helpful comment from one of the commentators on this passage: 'The point in the story that especially captured Luke's fancy was not just that Jesus was born in Bethlehem according to the old prediction, but that this promise of God came true because of an enactment of the Roman government. God was working His purpose out not only through the hesitancy of Zechariah, the exuberance of Elisabeth, and the quiet faith of Mary; Caesar Augustus too, like Cyrus in earlier days (Isaiah 45:1), had become the unwitting coadjutor of a salvation which would one day encompass his whole empire'. This is a good way to describe the marvellous interaction of the human and the divine in the coming of the Saviour of the world. Ultimately, it was not Caesar Augustus who was responsible, by his decree obliging all to go to their own place. The divine Hand was at work ordaining this, and prophecy was being fulfilled: 'Thou Bethlehem....' (Micah 5:2). In this light, Caesar Augustus was simply being used, manipulated, by the living God of history.
It is all the more startling, therefore, that there should have been no room for Him. But this was no accident in the divine planning, no 'slip-up' in its execution. Rather, it was to show, in symbol, the determined enmity of the world against God, in its sin, to show up sin for what it is, as sin; and it was part of His humiliation and of His atoning work for the sins of the world. It was in this 'no-room-ness' that redemption was wrought. In the world's very rejection of Him, God wrought His marvellous salvation. This is why the cradle and the cross necessarily belong together. For the inevitable and necessary climax of this 'no-room-ness' is seen in Christ as 'despised and rejected of men' and 'forsaken by God' in the dark agony of Calvary.